


Diner? I hardly even know her!

by HelveticaBrown



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-03 07:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15814464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelveticaBrown/pseuds/HelveticaBrown
Summary: Diner, Regina's 1950s themed diner, is on the brink of financial ruin, but there's no way Emma's going to let that happen (mostly so she doesn't have to move back in with her parents). A radio competition to win an engagement ring might just be the solution they're looking for.Fake relationship with an up-sized combo of mutual pining and extra tropey-tropes





	1. If penguins could fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lego_Femslash (Alicepire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alicepire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Diner? I Hardly Even Know Her! [ Protostar ART]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811038) by [Lego_Femslash (Alicepire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alicepire/pseuds/Lego_Femslash). 



> I wasn't planning to write a protostar fic, but it was love at first sight when I saw lego_femslash's work at 2 o'clock in the morning and when I'd finished cackling hysterically I knew I had to ignore my better judgement and write something for it. You should all go fall in love with it too.
> 
> Thank you to the SQSN mods for making this event such a huge success. It's incredible how much momentum this fandom still has and you guys are a big part of that.
> 
> Thank you also to AgathasAjax for helping me give this a spit and polish and for being patient with my extreme flakiness. A good beta reader is worth their weight in gold, but you're worth your weight in antimatter (which according to a Business Insider article from 2014 that I just randomly googled is the most expensive substance on earth)

Regina stares at the spreadsheet in front of her hoping that if she wishes hard enough the numbers will magically change. Based on her calculations, she has just enough cash in the bank to cover another two months of rent and wages. She’s spent the last two days doing and re-doing the sums and no matter which way she twists things she’s going to have to engage in a spot of headcount reduction, which is really more her mother’s specialty. Her mother, in her many years as a management consultant had become so infamous for it that she’d been nicknamed The Queen of Hearts.

She knows her mother wouldn’t hesitate at all in doing this, but she likes to think that she has at least a little of her humanity intact. Regardless of her feelings on the matter though, one way or another, her staff are going to be out of a job. She steels herself before walking out onto the floor, where Red and Emma are doing precisely nothing, to break the bad news.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go.”

“Let us go where? Disneyland? Can it please be Disneyland?” Emma asks a little too excitedly and Regina shakes her head.

 _Oh, you sweet summer child,_ she thinks. None of us are going to Disneyland this year, not by a long-shot, unless Disneyland is some kind of euphemism for debtor’s prison. “Perhaps you’ve noticed that business hasn’t exactly been booming lately.”

“This isn’t my fault, is it?” Emma asks, and that sweet, puppy-like face falls. “I was so happy when you trusted me to manage the fit-out and rebrand. I mean, I spent the whole summer watching episodes of Grand Designs just so I could make sure I knew how to manage the project as efficiently as possible.”

And maybe letting Emma Swan give her advice on styling anything had been a mistake. After all, she’s seen what passes for fashion when Emma’s off the clock. But no. Emma’s decisions had been sound, or so she’d thought at the time.

“You know, I was sure we had all the right ingredients to bring in the hipsters. Run-down neighbourhood with gentrification potential, near impossible to find…”

“Actually impossible,” Red mutters _sotto voce_.

She continues, unperturbed by the interjection. “And I feel like we’ve nailed the ironic theme. This place should be hipster catnip. But maybe Storybrooke’s too small. Maybe we’re too far ahead of our time while also being too far behind it with a 1950s-themed diner called ‘Diner.’”

Henry pipes up from the corner. “Maybe if you served something other than lasagne. Something with foams, or gels or soils or made with liquid nitrogen.”

“I can’t take lasagne off the menu. It’s a classic for a reason.” Regina looks around. There are two customers and both of them are eating lasagne. The fact that there are sixteen kinds of lasagne on the menu and not much else is hardly the point. “Besides, who would want to eat liquid nitrogen?”

Emma and Red both appear to seriously consider the question and Red finally suggests, “Maybe a snowman?”

Emma puts up her hand like an over-eager pre-schooler. “Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

“Yes, Emma?”

“Why didn’t the snowman pay his bills?”

Regina sighs, because nothing about this is going well. In fact, it’s far worse than she’d expected and she’s genuinely concerned her staff are actually cracking from the stress. Nonetheless, she indulges Emma. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Because his funds were frozen.”

Regina takes a deep breath and then another. And another. And another. She tries to remember every anger management class she was ever forced to take until she’s able to will herself to think only of happy things. _Puppies. Apple cider. Lasagne. More apple cider. Emma Swan’s jeans. Entire buckets of apple cider._

Some of her feelings must be bleeding through into her expression, because Emma screws up her face and says, “Now that I think of it, maybe that wasn’t the best time for that joke.”

Regina forces herself to smile gently, her voice as even as she can make it. “Perhaps it wasn’t.”

“How long have we got?” Emma asks, suddenly serious again.

“Maybe a month,” she says and she can see Red’s and Emma’s shoulders slump as the realisation hits them. It hits her, like a body blow, just how badly she’s let down the people who depend on her. She feels even more like a failure when Emma, despite her own predicament, reaches out and lays a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Regina. I know how much this place means to you.”

“I’m sorry too. I’ve been doing everything I can to keep things going. I was sure our fortunes were about to turn around when that horrible man in the Hawaiian shirts responded to Henry’s email about doing a profile on Diner.”

“Guy Fieri?”

“That’s the one. We would have been a perfect fit for his show.”

“More like Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares,” Red mutters.

Regina ignores that. She understands the urge to lash out in times of stress all too well. “It’s just a pity his research assistants got lost on their way to town.”

“Yeah. Funny that,” Red says, like she knows something that Regina doesn’t.

She doesn’t have much of an opportunity to think about that, because then Emma’s reminding her about the source of most of her problems.

“And it’s not like the bad press from the lawsuit was particularly good for business,” Emma says.

“It’s not my fault that silly bitch choked on one of my apple turnovers,” Regina snarls, suddenly furious as she thinks about the woman who’d ruined her business. “Maybe if she wasn’t too stupid to chew her food like a grown up.”

“Hey! That silly bitch you’re talking about is my mother.”

“And?”

“And okay, yeah, she kind of sucks sometimes,” Emma admits. “You know I did try to get her to drop the lawsuit, but she insisted it was The Right Thing to Do™.”

Regina thinks about marching out of Diner right now and setting fire to Mary Margaret Blanchard’s car, but she satisfies herself instead with shredding a paper napkin into tiny pieces. She shreds another one and then picks up a whole pile and tries to tear them in half at once. She fails, so she satisfies herself with throwing them on the floor and stomping on them repeatedly while she pretends it’s Mary Margaret’s head.

“What did she do with all that money, anyway?” she asks, gritting her teeth.

Emma sighs in a way that makes Regina absolutely certain she’s going to hate the answer. “She donated it all to a sanctuary for flightless birds.”

Regina frowns as she tries to parse that sentence. “Flightless birds? Like those weird ones they have in New Zealand?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, looking faintly embarrassed. “She thinks that all birds deserve a chance to fly.”

“Even penguins?” Regina’s so caught up by the absurdity of it all that for a moment she forgets the purpose of this conversation. She starts laughing, until she remembers that with the amount of money she’d been forced to pay out to Mary Margaret Blanchard, every fucking penguin in Antarctica could have its very own private jet.

Emma closes her eyes as if she’s wishing this all away and Regina’s more than a little tempted to join her in that. “Even penguins,” Emma says, and she sounds dead inside. “We have to find a way to save Diner. I can’t move back in with my parents. I just can’t.”

Regina’s suddenly taken by the urge to swoop in and make everything okay. She does have a spare bedroom she could offer, or a very large, very comfortable, very empty bed if that would suit Emma better. Except she’s pretty sure that neither of those ideas would be the least bit appropriate and she’s left with nothing but the ability to provide empty words of reassurance, because right now, she’s out of ideas.

*****

Sometimes she regrets her decision to walk away from her life as an award-winning actress to follow her dream of running a small-town diner. But then she remembers the satisfaction she gets from making a perfect lasagne and seeing the happy faces in front of her and it makes the endless hours of menial toil all seem worth it.

Even though she spends most of her time behind the scenes, sometimes she likes to work the floor, just so she can see that happiness right up close. There’s a businessman in the corner right now and she carries his meal over to him, setting it down with a bright smile.

He frowns at her. “I didn’t order the lasagne.”

“Everyone orders the lasagne. _Everyone_.” She leans over and grabs him by his tie. “You _will_ eat the lasagne.”

He gulps audibly, obviously preparing his palate for the cheese-laden delight that awaits him and she smiles even wider, because all is right with the world again. She folds her arms and stands by the table, watching him enjoy every last morsel of the dish. He shovels the lasagne into his face, clearly so delighted by it that he can’t slow down and eat like a normal person.

“How is your meal?” she asks and he almost chokes in his eagerness to respond. There’s a huge smile plastered across his face and he gives her a thumbs up.

Yes, the happy faces, satisfied by her hearty home-cooked meals of lasagne make it all worth it. All three hundred million and sixty-four dollars and twenty-two cents she’s sunk into making this the best damn diner in Storybrooke.

He slaps down a pile of bills on the table and runs out the door, presumably to tell all his friends and co-workers about the wonderful meal he just had.

She’s counting the money when Henry walks over. “Mom, you have to stop scaring the customers,” he says.

“I was doing nothing of the sort,” she says indignantly.

“He was terrified, Mom. He ate that lasagne so fast he probably has full-thickness burns in his mouth. And…” Henry wrinkles up his nose in disgust. “I think he might even have wet himself.”

Regina frowns as she looks at the chair. There _is_ a suspicious-looking wet patch where he’d been sitting. “More likely the food was so delicious he couldn’t bear to stop eating it even for long enough to use the bathroom.”

Henry sighs. “Sure thing, Mom.”

*****

Emma finishes disassembling and reassembling the cash register for the twentieth time today. She has to do something to make herself look useful and it’s not like there was any cash going into it anyway. While she’s contemplating fixing the cash register for the twenty-first time, a particularly large tumbleweed pauses in the doorway of the diner, thinks better of it and continues down the street. That just about sums up Diner’s fortunes right now, Emma thinks glumly.

She stands up from the chair she’s been sitting in for the past four hours and starts wiping down an already sparklingly clean table, just for something to do.

There’s an ad on the radio and she’s just about to walk over and change the station when something catches her ear. She pauses, hand hovering in mid-air above the table, all thoughts of cleaning suddenly forgotten.

“A $3,000 engagement ring just for proposing on air? I could buy a lot of grilled cheese and bear claws with that,” she exclaims to the almost-empty diner. She’s getting excited just thinking about it, before she remembers the gigantic spanner in the works. “Except, I’ve been single for so long my vagina might as well have pricked its finger on a spinning wheel on its sixteenth birthday.”

“Well that was an image I didn’t need,” Red says. She sits down and puts her feet up on the table Emma’s just finished cleaning. Emma flicks her with the cloth until she puts her feet back on the floor.

Emma pulls a face. “You know, my vagina does kind of feel a bit numb right now. Maybe it _has_ gone to sleep.” She wiggles her leg experimentally, trying to decide if it really has.

Red snaps her gum. “Maybe you need to buy better underwear. Or jeans that aren’t so tight.”

Emma looks at the booty shorts Red’s wearing and raises an eyebrow. “Like you can talk.”

Red shrugs. “Gotta find some way to bring in the tips, particularly with Dorothy trying to get her celebrity dog behaviourist business off the ground. It’s not like we’re drowning in cash here.”

“I know.” Emma thinks sadly of her own bank balance, which is just about big enough to extend to a pack of gum and a couple of days supply of instant noodles if she supplements it with a raid on the back of her sofa. “Which is why it would be so awesome if I could win that ring.”

“Surely there’s someone you could propose to and split the cash?”

Emma wracks her brains trying to think of someone and comes up more or less empty. She spends most of her waking hours at Diner even though she’s actually only paid to be here three days a week.

Pretty much the only people she knows that aren’t related to her are Red and Regina. And as for Regina… She shakes her head, not at all comfortable thinking about that particular possibility. “How about it, Red? Wanna get fake-married?”

Red shuts her down straight away, and even though it’s a fake proposal, it kind of stings. “Uh-uh. Dorothy would kill me if I married anyone but her, even if it was fake.”

“No way! I called dibs. You can’t ruin my fake engagement by getting real-married.”

“ _I’ll_ marry you for fifteen hundred dollars,” a voice says from the corner of the diner.

She looks over and pulls a face like she’s just stepped in dog shit. Actually, dog shit would probably be preferable, because at least it would imply the possibility that there might be a cute dog somewhere around that she could hug.

This is way, way worse.

The owner of that voice is Killian Jones, a man she wouldn’t fake-marry for fifteen million dollars, let alone fifteen hundred. She’s just about to dismiss him completely out of hand when something catches her eye. She looks at him a little more closely, not quite comprehending what she’s seeing, even though the sight of him is like the visual equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to her. “Is that a dough hook?”

Killian sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Yeah, love. After I lost my hand and my job, I couldn’t afford a prosthetic, so I nicked a couple of attachments from Robin’s stand mixer. It’s not like he needs them, anyway, not where he’s gone.”

The scandal at Soy Lentil Greens, Robin Locksley’s acclaimed vegan restaurant had almost bumped their apple turnover lawsuit off the front page. Unsafe work practices and a batch of vegan burgers contaminated with the remains of Killian’s hand that had been served to customers had led to the swift closure of the restaurant and Robin had fled Storybrooke, leaving behind dozens of angry customers and a stack of lawsuits that would have single-handedly seen the Amazon Rainforest pulped to provide enough paper.

Against her will, Emma actually feels a little bit bad for him. That feeling is quickly dispelled when he leers at her.

He holds up his hook and says, “I’ve got the right equipment to knead those buns of yours. So how about it, love? Want to get hitched for fifteen hundred dollars?”

“The only marriage that’s gonna happen here is between your face and my fist if you don’t get out of here.”

“So that’s a yes, then, love?”

“Not if you were the last man on earth,” she says, hoping he’ll get the message and go away.

It seems like the message he gets is slightly different than the one she intended, because he grins at her and waves his dough hook in the air. “Last man on earth, you say? Well, I’d better get started killing off the competition.”

He marches out of the diner with a sense of purpose, and Emma thinks about stopping him for a moment, but lets him go, because at least it’ll keep him busy for a while. She’s got far more important things to do than worry about whatever trouble Killian’s going to get himself into.

Emma looks over at Red, who had been too busy falling off her chair laughing to help rescue her from Killian. “What am I going to do?”

“There has to be someone who’d jump at $1500 dollars.” Red says, just as Regina walks through the door.

“Who do I need to jump for $1500?”

“Emma. You need to jump Emma,” Red says.  

Regina tilts her head and looks critically at Emma and she feels like she’s been graded and found lacking.

Red winks at Emma and whispers, “You can thank me later.”

“Uhh…” She’s not sure what, precisely, she’s supposed to thank Red for, because convincing Regina to pretend to be her fiancé seems like an exercise in futility.

Haltingly, she begins to explain the competition to Regina, expecting her to dismiss the idea out of hand.

“If we win, we get a three-thousand-dollar engagement ring.”

She’s taken completely by surprise when Regina grins fiercely and says, “Let’s do it. Just make sure you get in a plug for Diner while you’re proposing.”

“Why do I have to be the one to propose?”

“Because it’s more believable that way.”

Emma frowns, trying to decide if she’s just been insulted. She decides it doesn’t matter; all that matters is finding a way to avoid having to move back in with her parents. And saving Diner.

Regina starts plotting out exactly how they’re going to win this thing, but Emma hardly hears her, too busy thinking about the possibility of becoming fake-engaged to Regina. She can’t quite say why, but she’s suddenly very, very nervous.

*****

Regina’s walking down the street on her way to Diner when she spots a familiar food truck. She notes with more than a little annoyance that there’s a crowd of people three deep waiting to be served. If she had even half as many people coming through the doors, Diner would be out of trouble.

She stops, caught between the urge to cross the street away from the truck and the urge to set it on fire. Her moment of indecision is long enough for her sister to spot her and emerge from behind the counter.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my darling sister. Come to sample the finest onion rings in all of New England?”

“Hello, Zelena,” Regina grinds out. It’s an effort just to try and be civil and the reluctant greeting is about as much as she can manage without wanting to strangle her.

If Zelena clocks her internal struggle, she doesn’t show it. “I’ve been meaning to come by and see you. It just so happens I’ve been looking for new premises to expand my onion rings empire. Perhaps you might know of a commercial tenancy that will be coming up soon?”

It sounds like an innocent-enough question, but the smirk that creeps across Zelena’s face is anything but. Zelena’s always wanted everything she’s ever had and she’s certain that Diner is no exception. When Regina had been trying to get her break in Hollywood, Zelena had showed up to every audition Regina had gone for.

When Regina had decided she wanted a quieter life and moved to Storybrooke, Zelena hadn’t been far behind her, even though she’d actually, against all odds, found some measure of success as an actress. And now, Zelena’s spending her days sitting in her stupid onion ring truck taunting Regina from not even forty yards away.

“No. Do I look like a realtor?”

Zelena appears to seriously consider her question. “With that hair? Maybe. Although probably not a very good one.”

“I would make an excellent realtor,” Regina starts to argue, before realising she’s falling straight into another one of Zelena’s traps. “Never mind.”

“You know, I got a mention on Lorde’s onion ring Instagram account last month and since then I haven’t been able to keep up with demand.”

“How nice for you,” Regina answers shortly. She makes a move to get away from the conversation, but Zelena steps into her path.

“How’s business at Diner, anyway?” she asks.

“Never been better.”

“Funny. That’s not what I’ve been hearing. I’ve heard you’re about as popular as a broccoli stand at a six-year-old’s birthday party. Or, as popular as a Republican at a Greenpeace meeting. As popular as a…”

While Zelena’s occupied thinking up ever more creative insults, Regina takes her opportunity to make a run for it.

She gets to Diner and as soon as she walks through the door, Emma comes racing towards her, like a human-shaped golden retriever greeting her return. In her hurry, Emma trips over a chair, pinwheels her arms dramatically for a moment, before crashing into Regina. They end up sprawled on the floor, Emma on top of her, and Regina thinks the only saving grace is there’s absolutely no one there to witness her humiliation, because Diner’s as empty as always.

Regina tries to pick herself up, but Emma’s still on top of her and it seems like she’s too distracted by whatever has her bursting with excitement to realise that they’re on the floor in a decidedly awkward position.

“Emma…” Regina starts to say, but Emma’s too caught up in whatever’s going on in that shiny golden head of hers to hear her.

“Guess who’s getting fake-engaged?” Emma finally says. She props herself up on her elbows and looks down at Regina, still pinned beneath her.

Regina’s suddenly very uncomfortably aware of the weight of Emma on top of her and the way their curves and angles fit together, almost like they were meant to be. It’s been a long time – a _very_ long time – between drinks and she’s never been more conscious of that fact than she is right now. And staring up into those bright, enthusiastic eyes, Regina knows she’s in a lot of trouble, because if she had her way they wouldn’t be fake-anything. It would all be real.

She realises Emma’s waiting for a response, manages a semi-convincing, “That’s wonderful news,” and then lets her head thunk backwards on the floor.

Suddenly, Zelena is the least of her problems.


	2. PortmantNO

Somehow, this harebrained scheme is paying off in spades. Diner hasn’t been anywhere near this busy at any point in its existence. All the local press has picked up on the story of their engagement, and really, everything is going swimmingly, except…

“I hate portmanteaus,” Regina says as she looks at the latest write-up. “And _Emgina_ sounds like a particularly horrible medical condition that I absolutely do not wish to have.”

“Really? I think it’s kind of cute,” Emma says.

Regina scowls. “Ugh. You would.”

“What about _Regma_ , then? Maybe I could phone in an anonymous tip to the Mirror and they could start calling us that.”

Henry looks up from his phone. “There’s already an ice cream shop called Regma in Spain. This is part of your brand, so it’s better that it’s something unique.”

A flood of customers come through the door, cutting short their discussion about portmanteaus and Regina and Emma rush off to deal with them.

“Are any of these paleo lasagnes?”

“Paleo?” Regina frowns, not quite sure what the man in front of her is asking.

“It means you’ve hunted a noble beast for days, perhaps even weeks and then you weep manful tears as you cut its heart out and devour it, thanking it for its sacrifice,” the customer says, and Regina almost longs for the days when Diner had been empty and she didn’t have to put up with ridiculous crap like this.

“Actually, it’s where you pretend to hunt your dinner by throwing a hundred-dollar bill at it,” Emma says, walking over from a nearby table. “Just admit you want an excuse to feel better about eating twice your own bodyweight in bacon.”

He stands up and stalks out of Diner, muttering something the whole way about bulletproof coffee and deer hearts that Regina can’t make any sense of.

When he’s gone, Emma looks at her apologetically. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

She knows she should be annoyed at Emma for scaring away a customer, but there’s something about the wannabe huntsman that grinds her gears. “Don’t worry about it. There was something about him…”

“The cold, dead eyes and the flat stare?”

“That about sums it up.”

It’s all forgotten anyway, when a party of four walks through the door a moment later and she’s now got a free table to seat them at.

Her happiness turns out to be premature, because as Emma’s seating them, she realises that one of the customers is Mary Margaret Blanchard.

She storms back into the kitchen and busies herself with the huge pile of orders coming in. When she gets the order from the table she knows Mary Margaret’s on, she picks up her serve of lasagne. She walks over to one of the blenders, scrapes the contents of the plate into it and turns it on.

It looks disgusting. She pours it into a glass and walks out onto the floor and slams the glass down on the table.

“You have a lot of cheek coming here after what you did.”

Mary Margaret looks at the glass in front of her and then back at Regina. “I ordered the lasagne.”

“This _is_ the lasagne. I just wanted to make sure it was safe for you to eat. After all, I wouldn’t want you to choke again.”

Mary Margaret gives her a look of wounded reproach that would probably work on most other people. But most other people wouldn’t have lived through their beloved Diner nearly going ass-up thanks to the sanctimonious asshole sitting in front of her.

“I wasn’t sure about coming back here, but now that you’re engaged to my only daughter, I thought it was time to clear the air,” Mary Margaret says. “How did that happen, anyway?”

Regina’s still not sure of that herself, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to let Mary Margaret have any idea of how much of a weak point Emma Swan happens to be for her.

She goes on the offensive, refusing to let Mary Margaret Milquetoast guilt her into repressing all the anger she’s ever felt.

“I’m really not sure what there is to clear up. You’re the woman who ruined my business by suing me for a sum approaching the GDP of a mid-sized Pacific nation and I’m the woman who is currently introducing your daughter to the kind of sexual pleasure she’s only ever dreamed of.”

Regina grins smugly as Mary Margaret turns a funny colour, obviously rendered speechless by the wittiness of Regina’s ripostes. Except, then Mary Margaret starts coughing and spluttering and Regina realises that once again this ridiculous woman is on the verge of destroying her livelihood.

As she thumps Mary Margaret on the back, she wonders just how much it’s going to cost her this time. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to say that last thing while Mary Margaret had a mouthful of lasagne smoothie.

Emma rushes over just in time to witness her mother spraying pureed lasagne across the table. “What happened?”

Regina fumbles for an explanation, eventually landing on, “Your mother didn’t quite find today’s special to her liking.”

Mary Margaret is still coughing, but she’s recovered enough to shoot Regina an incredulous look.

“The dessert lasagne?” Emma asks.

“No, the lasagne smoothie.”

Emma tilts her head, confusion written all over her face. “Never mind, dear” Regina says, because maybe torturing her fake-fiancé’s mother isn’t exactly the best recipe for a happy, healthy and enduring fake marriage. “I was just…”

“Your father and I think you should call off the engagement,” Mary Margaret says and Regina glares at her for both the interruption and the content of her statement.

Emma doesn’t need her to fight her battles, though, because she stands her ground and Regina’s left with a warm glowy feeling, somewhere around her general heart region. She chastises herself for feeling that way, because Emma’s only doing this for the money.

“Mom, I’m twenty-eight years old. I think I’m old enough to make my own decisions about who I want to marry.”

“Emma, honey, she _did_ try to kill me. Twice now, if you count today. Is that really who you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

Before Emma can respond, Regina jumps in. “If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be sitting here enjoying a delicious lasagne smoothie.”

“Delicious is not the word I would use,” Mary Margaret says. “But that’s beside the point. Her cooking skills, or lack thereof, have nothing to do with the multitude of reasons why this is a bad idea.”

“Sorry Mom, I love her,” Emma says, and even though she knows it’s not real, Regina’s suddenly as breathless Mary Margaret had been a moment ago.

She can’t help the smile that works its way onto her face and grows wider at the one she receives from Emma in return. This may all be fake, but she might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

“Should I call you ‘Mom?’” Regina asks Mary Margaret, hoping for a reaction. She’s not disappointed. Okay, maybe she’ll torture her just a little bit…

*****

Emma throws a newspaper down onto the counter. “Have you seen this?”

Regina scowls when she looks at the newspaper and its headline. _Trouble in paradise: Emgina spotted sleeping in separate houses._

“This makes absolutely no sense. We have reporters camped out everywhere we go. Unless you’re secretly a Kardashian or royalty, I can’t even begin to understand why we’re so interesting to them.”

At first, she’d been happy for the attention, given how much it had helped with getting people through the door at Diner. But now, it’s well and truly crossed the line to intrusive.

“Unless there’s something major my parents aren’t telling me, or we’re all under a curse where we think we’re just regular people living in a crappy little town in Maine, I’m pretty sure I’m neither of those,” Emma says.

Both those possibilities are entirely ridiculous. Mary Margaret and David are both so bland that there’s no way either of them could have had an affair with a Kardashian. And as for the curse, well… now that she really thinks about it, living in Storybrooke does occasionally feel a little bit like a curse after the bright lights and fairy tales of Hollywood.

“I guess it doesn’t really matter _why_ they’re chasing us. What matters is that they _are_ chasing us and Diner’s ongoing success is riding on this.”

“So what do we do?”

“It’s 2018. No one’s ever going to believe we’re engaged if they think we’re not sleeping together.” Regina straightens her shoulders, resolving to do whatever’s necessary to save Diner. “We’re just going to have to find a way to convince them that we are. Otherwise, this whole thing’s going to fall apart.”

“Maybe we can tell them we’re saving ourselves for marriage. I mean, I _have_ been single so long that I’m pretty sure there are brambles growing over my vagina.”

Regina shakes her head. “No way that’s going to fly.” She pulls a face. “And if we _are_ going to have to fake sleeping together for the press, can you at least buy a machete and do some gardening down there?”

“So when are we doing this thing?”

Regina looks out at the crowd of journalists outside Diner. “We might as well do it now. We let them follow us back to your place and take it from there.”

*****

Emma peers out the window. The media scrum occupying the front lawn has been joined by a crowd of anti-same-sex marriage protesters. And as she watches, a group of counter-protesters show up. They’re basically besieged without any hope of being able to leave.

“They don’t look like they’re going anywhere,” Emma says and that impression is even further confirmed when a couple of members of their audience unfold deck-chairs and settle in with cups of coffee.

Regina peers over her shoulder. “I hate this.”

“I know. So do I.” She hates the intrusiveness of it all and she hates that there’s always someone waiting around the corner to record any of her slip ups. She’s trying so hard to keep her emotions under wraps, but spending so much time around Regina, with so much riding on this makes it doubly difficult. She feels like she’s walking a narrow, shaky tightrope over a giant chasm and she’s always on the verge of slipping up. On the one side, there’s the danger of slipping and revealing too much to Regina. On the other there’s the constant threat of exposure and she wonders just how bad the fallout would be if this whole thing was revealed as fake. They’d have to give the ring back, obviously, but there’s also what it would mean for Diner.

“Should we go to bed? Let them think we’re giving them what they want and hope that it satisfies them enough to go away?”

Emma nods. They might as well get this over with.

Regina follows her up the stairs to her bedroom, throws open the bedroom window before walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge.

“So how do we do this?” Emma asks, suddenly feeling very much out of her depth. She hesitantly sits next to Regina.

“You do your very best impression of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally,” Regina says a little drily.

“Why me? You’re the former actress. Shouldn’t you be the one doing this?”

“I called dibs on not doing it.”

Emma makes her best attempt at sex noises. It’s hard, because it’s been so long that she doesn’t actually remember what she’s supposed to sound like. After a while she starts to get into it and she thinks she’s doing a pretty good job.

Apparently not, though.

“Cut!” Regina says exasperatedly, snapping an imaginary clapperboard. “You’ll ruin my reputation if you keep doing this so badly. Everyone will know you’re faking and that would never happen to me.”

And fair enough, Emma can definitely see how that might be the truth, but it’s also not exactly her fault that she’s having to fake this.

“I’m trying my best.”

“You’re going to have to do better,” Regina says. “Perhaps it would help if I walked you through it, set the scene a little.”

“Okay,” Emma says, a little cautiously, because she’s still not sure how this is supposed to work.

Regina starts to describe in fairly graphic detail exactly what she would be doing and how her hypothetical partner would be responding and Emma’s pretty sure her brain’s about to explode like a dead whale on a very hot summer’s day.

Emma doesn’t exactly catch a lot of the content, because her mind is in a few thousand messy pieces, but she’s anchored by Regina’s voice, low and husky. It’s like a caress travelling up and down her spine setting all of her nerves alight.

“Now, let’s take this from the top,” Regina says, suddenly all business again. “Or the bottom. Whatever.”

This time, Emma’s sure she’s nailed it, because it’s not exactly all fake this time, but Regina still shakes her head.

“Never trust an amateur to do a professional’s job,” Regina says with a sigh. “Alright, sit back and relax and I’ll finish this off.”

Regina moans, and okay maybe that’s what this is supposed to sound like, because Emma can feel herself blushing.

Emma shifts uncomfortably as Regina continues her performance. Suddenly, it feels like the brambles have parted, the castle drawbridge is down and all she’s waiting for is her knight in shining armour to come inside and wake her up. Or wake her up and make her come, or some combination of those words.

It comes to an end and Emma can’t for the life of her decide if it’s over too soon or not soon enough. She swallows, her mouth suddenly parched. Regina smiles at her in a way that makes her stomach swoop.

“You can thank me later for the reputation boost.”

She clears her throat. “Thanks, I guess.”

Emma’s about to wander over towards the window to check if their audience has had their fill when Regina catches hold of her arm. “Wait. Your hair’s too neat for what we’re supposed to have been doing.” Regina runs her fingers through Emma’s hair and she tries not to lean into the touch, even though it feels a little too good.

Eventually, Regina’s satisfied that Emma’s hair is sufficiently messy and Emma breathes a sigh of relief, because she’s not sure how much longer she could have lasted without giving herself away.

“I don’t think they’re planning to leave,” Emma says, looking out the window at the still very large crowd outside her house

Regina joins her at the window, lightly pressing up against her back so she can see over Emma’s shoulder.

And literally none of this is helping, because when Regina’s voice alone is enough to short-circuit her brain, her actual physical presence threatens to start an electrical fire that no volume of cold showers could ever hope to extinguish.

“I guess we should probably try to get some sleep. You can take the sofa,” Regina says and Emma’s momentarily relieved that she’s not going to have to spend the night in such dangerous proximity to Regina.

Except, then she remembers that there’s a bit of a barrier to that plan. “There might be a slight problem with that. My sofa inexplicably caught fire last week and I haven’t had a chance to replace it. The weird thing is nothing else was damaged.”

“Fine, I’ll let you sleep in your own bed. But you better not snore.”

Emma climbs into bed beside Regina and rolls over to face the wall, as far across the bed as she reasonably can be without ending up on the floor.

She resigns herself to a very cold, very uncomfortable night and that prophecy is well and truly fulfilled when she wakes up halfway through the night. Regina’s sleeping peacefully, wrapped in the whole duvet, taking up most of the bed.

Her attempts to get comfortable disturb Regina’s very peaceful slumber and there’s a hand that briefly rests on her side before being swiftly retracted back under the duvet.

“You’re freezing,” Regina murmurs sleepily, and a moment later Emma’s wrapped in both the duvet and Regina’s arms.

*****

Emma half-jogs to keep up with Regina who is storming down the main street of Storybrooke, powered by righteous fury. They’re heading to Diner from Regina’s place, because keeping up appearances has suddenly become a full-time job.

The latest exposé has come out only a few days after their fake night together at Emma’s place and it’s making Regina even tetchier than usual. “I don’t know why Sidney Glass is so determined to prove this thing’s fake,” Regina snarls.

“I know,” Emma says soothingly, because she’s a little worried that Regina’s on the verge of snapping. “I can’t believe they’re still chasing us. The other night should have been more than enough to convince them.”

Emma’s still jogging to keep up with Regina and she crashes into her when she comes to an abrupt halt outside the liquor store.

“There’s a paparazzo following us,” Regina says, subtly pointing his reflection out in the store window.

Emma inclines her head slightly to indicate that she’s seen him. “So what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to make this convincing enough that they finally leave us alone.”

Emma doesn’t quite have time to ask what they’re supposed to be making convincing before Regina’s pulling her into a very stagey kiss. And okay, she doesn’t really have to try particularly hard, because as far as kisses go, this is definitely one of the better ones she’s been involved in.

A moment later, Regina steps back and eyes her dispassionately.

“Hmm… not bad. Maybe a little more tongue next time to really sell it.”

Regina must be an even better actress than she realised, because somehow that kiss managed to feel a little too real. It hadn’t started that way; it had very obviously been for the cameras. But then, Regina had softened and Emma, already so far off-balance, had felt herself fall even further into her.

And Emma can only stand there and wonder how Regina can switch straight back into business mode after a kiss like that, because it’s left her as addle-brained as if she’d been dropped on her head repeatedly from a great height.

She rubs the back of her head just to make sure she hasn’t been hit by a stray flying anvil, because one of Storybrooke’s only claims to fame is having one of the highest rates of freak head injuries per capita. A couple of years ago there had even been an epidemic of retrograde amnesia.

She’s kind of wishing for another one of those amnesia outbreaks right about now, because knowing what it’s like to kiss Regina and knowing she’ll probably never get to do it again is a little too much. She needs to not remember how soft Regina’s lips are, what the little hairs at the nape of her neck feel like under her fingers, the way she sighs a little when Emma’s hand splays across the small of her back, drawing her closer.

She needs to not remember, because eventually things will have to go back to normal, they won’t be fake-engaged and they’ll just be a boss and an employee once again. And all that Emma will have left are synthetic memories of things she wants but can’t have.

She manages to mostly ignore the flashbulb in the background; she’s sure that they’ve given the creep his fill of exclusive photographs. It must be enough, because as they walk away, the flashbulb stops firing and it seems like they’re finally alone for the first time in days.

That’s why she’s more than a little surprised when Regina reaches out and takes her hand and doesn’t let it go until they’re walking through the front door of Diner.

“So how long are we going to keep this up for?” Emma asks, suddenly exhausted at having to pretend to care and not care about Regina all at once.


	3. Emma and Regina go to Green Palace

“So how long are we going to keep this up for?”

And that right there is the million-dollar question. Or not really million-dollar, because Diner’s a small-town diner and there’s no way they’re going to turn over that much this year. It’s definitely a several-thousand-dollar question, though, and Regina’s hopelessly conflicted over what to do.

On the one hand, the publicity is doing wonders for business. Diner is suddenly a success beyond all of her wildest dreams and she doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardise that.

On the other hand, pretending to be engaged to Emma is getting harder by the minute. Not because she dislikes Emma; in fact, the problem is increasingly the opposite.

She feels kind of guilty for the kiss earlier, wondering if that’s what’s suddenly made Emma uncomfortable about their ongoing ruse. She says as much. “I’m sorry if that kiss made you uncomfortable.”

Emma shrugs. “You were only doing what you had to do to keep the press off our backs. I think they really bought it this time.”

And yes, that’s mostly true, but she’d also enjoyed it a little too much not to question her own motives for instigating it.

“Besides, as far as kisses go, it wasn’t terrible. I mean, I’ve definitely had worse,” Emma adds.

And if that isn’t damning her with faint praise, Regina doesn’t know what it is. It’s certainly enough to shatter any possible illusion she might have had that maybe, in the teeny-tiniest way, Emma might feel something for _her_ and not just for the three thousand dollars’ worth of engagement ring she’s currently wearing.

Regina doesn’t get to dwell on that thought, because a familiar voice rings out from somewhere in Diner.

“A-ha! I knew it!”

It doesn’t take long for her to track Zelena down. There’s a woman sitting in the corner in a ridiculous wig and oversized sunglasses, brandishing a voice recorder above her head.

“Zelena,” she growls. “I am going to end you.”

She storms across the floor, Zelena firmly in her sights.

“Not if I end you first, Sis. I have the evidence right here and once _Emgina_ is revealed for the lie that it is, people are going to forget about this sad little diner.”

Just as Regina’s approaching her table, Zelena throws a bag of onion rings at her. One of them explodes in a puff of smoke, and when Regina’s vision clears, Zelena’s no longer in front of her. She can still hear her, cackling like a set of bells in a lunatic asylum.

“Magic onion rings? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Regina says. When she catches Zelena she’s going strangle her.

“Yes, my onion rings are so magical they once made a pregnant woman go from 12 weeks to full-term.” Zelena’s never been one to settle for making a clean exit when she can draw things out with maximum drama. 

“Are you sure they didn’t just give her really bad gas?” Emma asks and for a moment, she catches Zelena’s attention. But then she’s being dismissed out of hand and Zelena’s facing Regina again.

Emma starts sneaking her way across the floor towards Zelena and Regina realises that maybe if she buys some time, Emma might be able to wrestle the recording away from her.

“Why did you do it, Zelena?” Regina asks, projecting her voice like a grade schooler in their first school play. She knows that Zelena can’t resist her moment in the spotlight and sharing her evil plan with a couple of dozen onlookers is bound to scratch that itch.

“Because I could,” Zelena shouts melodramatically. “And now my fast food empire, Green Palace, will be born right here, in the ashes of Diner. Yellow brick rocky road sundaes, wicked rings, munchkin burgers... First the people of Storybrooke and then the world!”

Emma’s almost there, but she slips on a stray onion ring and crashes to the ground. Regina rushes over, Zelena momentarily forgotten, to make sure she’s okay.

This time, Zelena does make her exit. “Fly my pretties, fly!” Zelena screeches, as she tosses more onion rings around Diner on her way out the front door.

She thinks about taking off after her, but this time, Zelena seems to be well and truly gone. Instead, she reaches out a hand and helps Emma to her feet.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, dusting herself off. “Your sister seems weirdly obsessed with the Wicked Witch of the West.” Emma stands with her hands on her hips, staring out after Zelena.

Regina sighs. “She’s been like this ever since I beat her for the role of Elphaba in our high school production of Wicked. She played Nameless Citizen of Oz number seven, spent her whole two minutes on stage chewing the scenery and she’s been like this ever since.”

“So what do we do now?” Emma asks.

“I don’t know that there’s much more we can do, except wait and see.”

*****

Emma sits down for the first time in hours; it’s been another busy day at Diner and she’s been run off her feet. Even after the news of their fake engagement had broken, the customers hadn’t stopped coming, because for all the weirdness of Regina’s lasagne-heavy menu, the food is good and the fit-out’s pretty cool even if she does say so herself.

She idly flicks through a newspaper that’s been left on the table, stopping when she lands on yet another story about her and Regina and their fake engagement.

She ignores the words – she’s heard them all before – her eyes drawn to the photo: it’s a candid she doesn’t remember being taken. Regina’s reaching out to push a lock of hair back behind her ear and Emma’s smiling at her, her hopeless infatuation all too obviously on display.

She remembers the moment; neither of them had realised there was anyone else around, but it seems the moment hadn’t gone unrecorded. Maybe it’s just the graininess of the photograph, but she can almost convince herself there’s a softness in the way Regina’s looking at her.

She traces the line of Regina’s jaw with her finger, drawn back into the memory of that kiss a couple of weeks ago. Henry sits down opposite her, catching her in the act and she hastily shoves the newspaper to the side.

She can tell she hasn’t been quick enough because Henry smirks at her like the smug little shit he is.

“Does my mom know you have a thing for her?”

“What are you talking about, kid?”

“You looked like you were just about to start making out with that picture of my mom. Or maybe like you were going to cut the picture out and paste it up on your bedroom wall.”

“Do I look like I’m twelve years old?”

Henry appears to seriously consider the question and she glares at him. “Actually, you’re pretty old. But you’re kind of acting like you’re twelve.”

“Gee, thanks kid.”

“If I was an author, I might have a character like me try to speed things up. Seeing as I’m not, I’m just going to have to do the job myself.”

“Kid, you need to stop reading all this weird stuff and play some video games.” He’s been walking around with a pile of literary criticism textbooks for the last week. A couple of weeks before that, it had been marketing and he’d become their self-appointed PR rep.

“Actually, I’m making heaps of money helping college kids with their essays.”

“Does your mom know you’re doing that?”

Henry shrugs. “I’m sure she’d be proud of my entrepreneurial spirit.”

Emma’s not so sure, but she’s not going to get in the middle of this. “So that’s a ‘no?’”

Henry’s not very easily distracted and he’s straight back on the topic of her and Regina’s non-existent relationship and her feelings about it.

“Anyway, that’s all beside the point. You like my mom.”

“I didn’t say that.” Admit to nothing, that’s always been her motto.

“Yes you did. And she doesn’t entirely hate you, which means she’s pretty much madly in love with you.”

Emma’s about to argue again, but he catches her attention with that last point. “Why do you say that?” she asks, wondering if maybe Henry has some kind of inside information. He is, after all, annoyingly perceptive about a lot of things.

“She’s just _different_ around you. I mean, most people drive her nuts, but on a scale of _Kill it with fire_ to _I will grudgingly tolerate you_ , you score as a not-so-grudgingly tolerate.”

And if that isn’t a ringing endorsement, Emma doesn’t know what is. “I don’t want her to tolerate me. I want…” She stops short, because a lot of the things she wants are the kinds of things she shouldn’t be discussing with Regina’s eleven-year-old son.

“There’s also the bit where she keeps you around, even though she can’t stand your mother.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m an asset to her business.”

“Really?” Henry asks, a little too incredulous for Emma’s liking. And okay, maybe she’s not the best waitress around, but she can hold her own.

“You’re a pretty terrible waitress,” Henry says, comprehensively bursting her bubble. “There’s like a hundred people in town who are more qualified than you and would probably break less stuff.”

“I’m useful,” Emma protests. “How many times have I fixed the cash register?”

Henry rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t really count if you broke it in the first place.”

Even though she can’t believe she’s being sassed by an eleven-year-old, Emma doesn’t really have a response to that. Instead, she looks down at the picture again.

“Why don’t you just ask her out? What have you got to lose?”

She doesn’t answer for a moment, just keeps studying the photograph. Eventually, she says, “ _Everything_. What if she doesn’t feel the same and she decides to fire me because it’s too awkward working together after that?”

“She’s not going to do that. Would it help if I lured you both into the storeroom and locked you in together?”

“Don’t even think about it, kid.” She makes a mental note to be extra careful around doors over the next few days, because knowing Henry he would totally go through with it.

“Why not? It always works on TV.”

“This isn’t TV. This is real life and things aren’t that simple.”

She wishes they were. She desperately wishes that broken-elevator-induced lust was a real thing and that fake dating leads to real dating leads to happily-ever-afters. But the real world is messy and things don’t just neatly fall into place like they do in the movies. There won’t be a desperate car chase to get to the airport just in time for a declaration of love. There won’t be a kiss in the rain in the middle of the airport while a high school brass band she hired to win Regina back plays flatulently in the background and thousands of jet-lagged travellers applaud and cheer instead of racing to be the first person to the baggage carousel. 

“I still think you should…”

Emma cuts him off, because Henry’s just as stubborn as his mother and she’s pretty sure she hasn’t heard the last of this. But it’s the last she wants to hear about it tonight, so she abruptly stands up, her chair scraping harshly against the tiles. “I need to get back to work.”

*****

“Hot behind,” Emma says, brushing a little too close to Regina in the tight quarters of the kitchen.

The contact is brief and barely there, but between that and the familiar kitchen innuendo, it’s enough to send Regina’s head into a maelstrom of confusion and the plate she’s holding slips from her hands and smashes.

She kneels down and starts absent-mindedly picking up the pieces, all the while thinking about the pieces she can’t pick up and the things she can’t fix. It’s been a few weeks since Sidney Glass’ story went live and even though Diner hasn’t suffered for it, Regina’s mood certainly has. It shouldn’t be possible for something that was always fake to feel so much like a break-up, but she’s not sure she’s ever been this heartbroken over anyone.

“Shit!” She cuts herself on one of the pieces and stares in dismay at the blood dripping from her hand. Emma’s on the floor beside her a moment later, wrapping her hand in a tea towel and murmuring soothing things to her.

“Are you okay, Regina?” Emma asks.

She nods sharply. “It’s just a cut. I’ll be fine.”

Emma shakes her head. “No, I mean like, are _you_ okay? Is there anything you need to talk about? It’s just… you’ve seemed kind of off recently.”

She supposes that being fake-engaged to someone for a couple of months lets you get some degree of insight into them and maybe that’s why Emma seems unexpectedly attuned to her mood. But that doesn’t really matter right now, because she has a diner full of hungry people to feed.

“We don’t have time for this. There are people waiting on meals that should have been out there ten minutes ago.”

She knows that’s her fault; she’s been more than a little pre-occupied and the only reason Emma had been helping in the kitchen was because she was already falling behind.

She finds the first aid kit and tries to patch herself up as best she can, but the cut’s in an awkward spot and Emma comes over to help her.

Emma runs her thumb across the intact skin below the bandage, still holding her hand. “Good as new,” she says and Regina can’t help the soft, hopelessly besotted smile that curves her lips.

They get back to their stations and Regina forces herself to focus on making it through this service when all she really wants to do is run away. Somehow, they get to the end of a busy Saturday night without any more mishaps and Regina’s this close to being able to breathe again.

“You should go home,” she says to Emma, certain that if she’s near her any longer, everything she’s feeling will spill over and she’ll be exposed to Emma’s judgment and found wanting.

Emma shakes her head. “Come on, I’ll help you close.”

“Sure,” she says, against her better judgment. Really, she just wants to push Emma out the front door so she can focus on the business of putting one foot in front of the other and keeping herself from falling apart completely.

They make a good team, and they’re done in less than half the time it would have taken Regina to do things herself.

Emma’s leaning against the counter watching Regina finalise the cash register. When she’s done, she says, “I know it wasn’t great timing earlier, but I meant what I said about if you need someone to talk to. So are you okay?”

Regina swallows, preparing to give voice to yet another lie. And maybe it’s the way Emma’s looking at her, all warmth and sincerity, but she allows a little bit of the truth to slip out. “No, I’m not.”

Emma walks around behind the counter and Regina instinctively takes a step back, worried as she is that Emma might be about to hug her. She’s already let some of her control slip and what’s left is far too brittle to stand up to a direct assault like that. But Emma doesn’t hug her. Instead, she nudges her aside with her hip and then reaches below the counter to pull out a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

“I know you’ve just finalised the takings, but here…” Emma reaches into her pocket and pulls out enough of her tips to cover the bottle of wine she has in her hand.

Regina rolls her eyes and pushes the money back over to Emma. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m buying you a drink and we’re gonna talk. Or not, if that’s what you’d prefer. Either way, it kind of looks like you need a friend right now.”

And yes, she probably does need a friend right now, but she’s not sure that Emma quite fits that role. Nonetheless, she follows Emma over to a table and sits opposite her, taking the glass of wine that Emma pours with a theatrical flourish.

She takes a sip of her wine and then another, while Emma patiently watches her and then somehow, she can’t quite stop the truth from spilling out.

“Lately I’ve been having some regrets about the whole fake engagement thing. I shouldn’t have agreed to it when I knew there were going to be complications–”

“You’re talking about Zelena, right?”

It would be all too easy to lay that on Zelena and deflect Emma away from the truth, but she’s tired of pretending. She’s had a taste of what it would be like to be with Emma, a moment of not having to pretend quite so much, and pushing that all back down and locking it away seems more and more difficult the longer she goes on.

“No,” she says, smiling ruefully. “No, I shouldn’t have agreed to it when I knew my feelings would make things complicated. I shouldn’t have put you, or myself in that position.”

Emma’s looking at her, open-mouthed, her glass of wine halfway to her lips. “Your feelings? About what?” she finally asks.

“About _who_ ,” Regina says softly and she glances down at the table, before looking back up to meet Emma’s eyes. There’s a kind of dawning recognition in Emma’s eyes and Regina sits, holding her breath, waiting for it to morph into something else. Anger, disgust, she’s not sure what to expect.

Emma puts her glass down and blinks a few times as if she’s trying to clear some sort of fog from her vision. “Are you saying–” She stops abruptly and blinks a few more times before staring at Regina.

Regina takes another sip of her wine, holds it in her mouth for a moment, before swallowing. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Oh.” Emma frowns, and Regina’s heart sinks, because this is the moment where she finally sees how she’s ruined it all. “ _Oh_ ,” Emma says again.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She regrets this already, because at the end of the day, she’s also Emma’s boss and she shouldn’t be doing anything that makes her feel unsafe.

Emma shakes her head. “No, it’s okay.” She holds her hand up when Regina tries to apologise again. “The thing is, this wasn’t exactly uncomplicated from my side, either. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite.”

It’s Regina’s turn to gape like a fish out of water, because she doesn’t quite trust her ears or her brain to process what Emma’s saying.

“I guess,” Emma continues, “what I’m saying is that I have feelings for you and it kind of sounds like maybe you’re trying to say the same thing.”

There’s a question in that and this time, there’s no hesitation on her part to answer truthfully. The smile she gets in response warms her through.

“Can I kiss you now?” Regina asks, because she wants to make absolutely certain this is real.

“As long as there are no cameras around,” Emma says, and now she’s grinning.

Regina shakes her head. “No, this one’s just for us.”

*****

 Henry looks up from the textbook he’s reading as she walks past. “You and Mom were just making out in the storeroom. Want me to phone in a tip to the Mirror?”

Emma almost drops the plates she’s carrying. “What? No we weren’t.” It’s been a couple of days since she and Regina had figured things out, but they haven’t quite made it to the point of telling anyone about it.

He ignores her denial and continues, “You could get some great publicity for Diner. Fake relationship to the real thing… people love that kind of trash. They’d move into a dumpster and read about it all day if they could.”

Emma’s next denial dies on her lips and she sets the plates down on a nearby table and puts her hands on her hips. “Oh my god, kid. Can’t you just be like regular grossed-out by this?”

“I _am_ grossed out. This is just my way of repressing the complex trauma of seeing you wearing my mom’s lipstick.” He pulls a disgusted face that makes him look a lot more like the eleven-year-old boy that he is. “And you so didn’t put it on yourself in the mirror.”

Emma swipes the back of her hand across her mouth, feeling more than a little self-conscious and it’s not helped by the knowing look Henry gives her.

Red wanders up to the table, obviously having overheard some of the conversation. “I’m grossed out and traumatised too. You and Regina didn’t even notice me when I went into the storeroom to get some more napkins. Your hands were–”

Emma glances over at Henry and then gives Red a pointed look. “We were stocktaking.” Technically it’s true. They _had_ been checking what needed to go on their next supplier order, but there was something about being in a tiny room full of cluttered shelving that made everything seem infinitely sexier. She couldn’t quite explain it; one moment they’d been reaching for the same jar of dried oregano, the next she’d been pressed up against the very unstable shelving and Regina’s hands had somehow found their way beneath her shirt.

She makes a mental note to remind Regina to order some more oregano. And some sun-dried tomatoes, some 00 flour and… maybe some professional cleaners. Those shelves had been even flimsier than they looked.

Red snorts. “Can’t say I’ve ever had as much fun doing a stock-take as you seemed to be having. Taking off stockings, on the other hand…” Red tilts her head contemplatively. “Although I seem to remember some of that…”

Emma jabs at Red with her elbow. She almost falls over when Red steps smoothly out of the way. “Can we not talk about this in front of the kid?” she whispers.

Henry rolls his eyes. “We have cable at home. I _know_ what you were doing and I’m going to be in therapy for years because of it.” He brightens a little. “I told you the storeroom would work, though. Never fails.”

Emma shakes her head, because whatever it is the kid’s been reading or watching, he should probably stop and find a more age-appropriate hobby.

Regina wanders over and Emma’s not sure whether to be relieved at the interruption or alarmed. She looks over at Red, notices her shit-eating grin and settles on alarmed. 

“What are we talking about?” Regina asks no one in particular, before sparing a soft smile for Emma. For a moment, Emma forgets about their audience and she can feel an equally soft, idiotic smile creeping across her face, but then Red snaps her gum and she remembers exactly what has been happening for the last few minutes.

“Nothing,” Emma hurriedly says before Red can jump in with anything more incriminating. Her eyes widen when she notices Regina’s shirt buttoned up wrong, because she knows it’s only a matter of seconds before Red sees it as well.

Red chooses another detail to fixate on, one that happens to be no less mortifying. “When did you have time to go to the salon, Regina? I really like what you’ve done with your hair,” Red says, and if it’s even physically possible, her smile becomes even wider. Emma’s pretty sure if she smiled any more than that her face would actually turn inside out.

She thankfully doesn’t have much time to contemplate that extremely disturbing thought, because Regina is self-consciously patting at her (very cutely mussed) hair that Emma may have had a small role in styling and the relaxed look of a moment ago is quickly being overtaken by a much more tense expression. It’s definitely time to shut this conversation down, before Red says something that kills whatever good mood Emma’s managed to put Regina in.

“Should we finish that stocktake we were doing?” Emma goes with the first thing that comes to mind and before Regina can argue with her, she takes her by the arm and leads her away. In the background, she can hear Red laughing and she tries to ignore the fact that Red is definitely going to be giving her a whole lot of shit about this later on.

She doesn’t stop until they’re back in the storeroom and the sound of Red’s laughter is mercifully cut off by the closed door.

Regina’s frowning now, and it seems that Emma’s efforts to preserve Regina’s good mood have all been in vain. “Did you tell Red about us?”

Emma shakes her head. “I didn’t tell her a thing.”

“So why was she just looking at me like she knows what we were just doing?”

Emma goes to lean against one of the shelves and thinks better of it when she feels it wobble a little. She takes a step forward and pulls a face when she steps on something that’s weirdly squishy. She hopes it’s just a sun-dried tomato.

“Probably because she knows exactly what we were doing because she witnessed some of it with her own two eyes a little while ago.”

“Really?”

Emma nods. “Apparently she walked right in, grabbed some napkins and we didn’t notice anything.”

“I suppose we were a little wrapped up in each other.” Regina’s expression softens and Emma’s more than a little tempted to take a step towards her and maybe revisit some of what they’d been doing earlier.

She doesn’t get the chance to, because Regina sighs, obviously a little more wrapped up in slightly more important issues. “Okay, so Red knows. Just as long as I get to tell Henry in my own time. I need to make sure he’s okay with this.”

Emma winces, because this isn’t exactly the kind of bad news she wants to be breaking. “You’re maybe a little bit late for that. Henry not only knows, but he’s pretty much ready to sell our story on breakfast television. He’s probably on the phone to the producers of Good Morning America right now.”

Regina groans. “This was so much simpler when we were fake dating.”

“The good news is he seems very much okay with it. Although he really might need therapy if we stay in this storeroom much longer.”

Regina gives her a puzzled look and Emma decides not to enlighten her about the substantive parts of the earlier conversation she’d missed. Instead, she takes a step forward, intending to cup Regina’s jaw in her hand and kiss her softly.

At least, that’s the way it plays out in her head, right up until that damned sun-dried tomato finally wreaks every bit of havoc it was destined for and she slips. She waves her arms wildly for a moment and manages nothing more useful than to dislodge a bag of flour on one of the shelves. Before she knows it, she’s covered in flour and every bit of dignity she’d ever possessed is on the floor along with half of Diner’s stock.

Regina reaches out and grabs her by the front of her shirt, steadying her enough that she can finally regain her footing.

“You’re an idiot, you know,” Regina says. Her lips twitch for a moment and then she’s laughing unrestrainedly.

All Emma can do is sigh and try to brush off some of the flour that’s pretty much all over her, while Regina gets this out of her system. It takes a moment, but Regina finally gets herself under control, although Emma can see the laughter still threatening to break through.

Regina takes a careful step towards her and Emma sucks in an unsteady breath at the look that Regina’s suddenly giving her.

“You’re my idiot, though,” she says softly, before brushing some more flour off Emma’s cheek in what turns into a caress and Emma leans into the touch. Then she’s leaning forward, kissing Emma, soft and sweet. Her heart feels fuller than it’s ever been, and when Emma thinks back to their first kiss just for the cameras, this one, barely more than chaste, eclipses that one in every possible way.

After a while, they reluctantly part. They walk back onto the floor and Red looks up from the table she’s wiping down and starts snickering. Emma tries her best to ignore her, but she can feel Regina bristling a little beside her.

Red is saved from the fires of Regina’s wrath by Henry piping up excitedly, “Mom, did you know that Guy Fieri officiates gay weddings? He did 101 of them in Miami a couple of years ago.”

“That’s very nice of him,” Regina says non-commitally and Emma can see exactly where this is going.

She’s not wrong. “I was thinking I could e-mail him again. Maybe he could finally do that piece on Diner and gay-marry you and Emma. It would be great publicity,” Henry says a little too enthusiastically.

“You know we were just fake-engaged, right, kid?”

“I know, but…” His face starts to crumple and Emma rolls her eyes, because he’s kind of ridiculous, but she also knows it’s absolutely going to work on Regina. “I just really want to meet Guy Fieri,” he says, burying his face in his hands. The effect is somewhat diluted when he peeks through his fingers, but Regina doesn’t seem to notice.

Instead, as Emma expects, Regina folds like a cloth napkin in a French restaurant. “Henry, I promise that if Emma and I get married at some point in the future, we’ll think about asking Guy Fieri to be involved. As long as he does something about that terrible facial hair and wears a nicer shirt of course.”

“You promise to ask him?” Henry goes from fake-miserable to cheerful in a nanosecond and Emma notices exactly what words he uses and she’s sure he’ll bring up the exact terms of Regina’s promise if she happens to change her mind.

“Definitely.”

Regina mouths a silent apology at her and Emma just shrugs. Honestly, she can think of worse things than having Guy Fieri officiate at their hypothetical future wedding. The fact that there might just be a hypothetical future wedding is more than enough considering a few weeks ago the best she could have hoped for was to go a little bit longer without being found out for being a fraud in more ways than one.

“Seeing as I’m mostly the reason you two got together, can I be your flower girl?” Red sidles over, apparently unhappy at having been excluded from the conversation for too long.

“Why not? Guy Fieri can marry us, you can be the flower girl and–“ Emma pauses for a moment to consider what could make the whole imaginary affair more ridiculous and catches sight of a figure lurking by the door. She raises her voice, enough that she’s sure to be heard. “And Zelena can cater the reception. Onion rings all round.”

Zelena stalks in looking every bit affronted as she normally does. “You’re staging a fake wedding to get attention for this pathetic excuse for a diner? How desperate can you get?”

Regina shakes her head. “No, we’re not. But if we _did_ get married,” she reaches out and takes hold of Emma’s hand before continuing, “ _nothing_ about it would be fake.”

Zelena looks back and forth between them for a moment and makes a disgusted noise. “Fine. I’ll cater your stupid reception, just so your guests have something to look forward to after all the disappointment.”

And Emma smiles, because ridiculous as this all is, she’s not sure it could be any more perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this exercise in extreme silliness. Lego_Femslash's artwork was such a rich source of ideas, so this fic pretty much wrote itself. Except for the ending, because I suck at writing endings and exactly 24 hours before the reveal, I decided to add the last scene. I don't know if it was the right call, so if you'd prefer to pretend that it ended before that, please do.
> 
> Also, because it's that kind of fic, I kind of imagined it having one of those stupid 'where are they now' epilogues, but I was too useless to write it. So for those of you who've bothered to read this far, here are some of the things that might have made the cut...
> 
> Regina and Emma aren’t married yet. Henry convinced Guy Fieri to officiate at their (real) wedding. They’re still waiting for him to show up.
> 
> Zelena’s Green Palace chain has taken the east coast by storm. She’s using the profits to fund a one-woman production of Wicked with herself in the starring role (and every other role). She’s also in negotiations to produce a direct-to-video sequel of the modern stoner classic Harold & Kumar go to White Castle
> 
> Mary Margaret’s sanctuary for flightless birds failed to get off the ground. She’s currently being investigated by the IRS for taxation fraud and embezzlement. 
> 
> Red’s still working at Diner, because she's pretty sure she can't actually leave Storybrooke. Her girlfriend Dorothy’s celebrity dog training business went under after her clients kept running away from her and getting taken by natural disasters
> 
> Guy Fieri is still trying to find his way to Storybrooke. He’s driven past the same Green Palace restaurant sixteen times in the last day and he doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. He's determined to make it though, because everyone should be able to get gay-married by Guy Fieri


End file.
